Dunaliella Salina Guide

Dunaliella Salina is a green algae best known for turning lakes red around the world. Today, the algae is being studied for various health benefits.

What is Dunaliella Salina?

Dunaliella Salina is a green micro-algae typically found in sea salt fields around the world.

Have you ever seen pictures of red lakes pop up on the internet? In most cases, those lakes are red because of Dunaliella salina.

In recent years, however, the algae has been studied for its health benefits. The algae produces high levels of carotenoids, powerful antioxidants that are then used in cosmetics and dietary supplements.

Carotenoids, by the way, are the same compounds that turn your carrots orange and your tomatoes red.

Studies on the algae can actually be traced back as far as the USSR in 1996. Below, you’ll find out what makes Dunaliella salina special.

The specific species of algae called Dunaliella salina is found prominently in Australia. Today, most of the algae in the world comes from farming sites in Australia, where farmers create huge saline ponds and let the algae bloom.

However, Dunaliella salina growths have been observed in saline lakes around the world, including the Dead Sea.

How Does Dunaliella Salina Work?

What makes Dunaliella salina special? Well, few living organisms can survive in the high-salt environment of salt evaporation ponds. In order to survive, the algae needs to release high levels of beta-carotene.

This beta-carotene helps protect the algae against the intense light and other environmental damages.

At the same time, the algae produces high concentrations of glycerol to protect against osmotic pressure.

The high levels of glycerol, beta-carotene, and antioxidants give Dunaliella salina its health benefits. However, some also believe that the algae could have a promising future as a bio-fuel.

We know that you can create bio-fuel out of Dunaliella salina algae. The main challenge today is that it’s too expensive to produce – which means it’s not a good alternative to taking fossil fuels out of the ground to make biodiesel.

Dunaliella Salina and Australia

Australia is leading the way in terms of growing the Dunaliella salina algae.

One recent article about the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia discussed how local governments were being forced to innovate after iron prices tumbled in the resource-heavy region.

Farmers in the mineral-rich region decided to look into creating Dunaliella salina, described as a “type of micro-algae…reknowned for its antioxidant properties.”

A region around Pilbara’s Port Hedland was recently chosen by a company named InterClinical Laboratories. That company created Plankton Farms in the region specifically to grow Dunaliella salina.

The algae grows naturally in Australian salt lakes, so it’s expected that commercial cultivation will be even more successful in the area.

InterClinical’s founder, Ian Tracton, says the region was perfect for growing the algae:

“We were looking for a place with lots of sunny, cloudless, hot days and that's what the Pilbara offers. We're the only flower in the area, surrounded by the resources industry just about everywhere you look.”

In the future, Plankton Farms might be leading the way in terms of commercial cultivation and retail supplement production of Dunaliella salina – because there are few supplements on the market today.

As you’ll learn below, ICL Health (the company behind Plankton Farms) has already brought one Dunaliella supplement to market.

Scientific Evidence for Dunaliella Salina

One of the best sources of scientific evidence for Dunaliella salina comes from this overview of 100 years of Dunaliella research published online in July, 2005. The author of that study, Aharon Oren, titled his work “A hundred years of Dunaliella research: 1905-2005”.

Here are some of the key findings from that study:

— The Dunaliella genus was first described in 1905, which is why the author chose to do an overview of research in 2005. The algae was first sighted and described in 1838 in “saltern evaporation ponds in the south of France”.

— The pigment responsible for the unique red coloring of the Dunaliella algae is a carotenoid. However, the algae has been observed taking on all sorts of different colors. As one study described: “[Researchers] realized that the carotene masks the chlorophyll, so that the chloroplast can assume all shades from orange-red to yellow-green, olive and green.”

— The algae grows most optimally in concentrations between 2% and 8% salt, and it demonstrates very slow growth (if any growth at all) at salt concentrations above 15%.

— One of the unique traits of Dunaliella is that the cells lack a rigid cell wall, and the cell is enclosed only by a thin elastic plasma membrane. This is why the cell’s morphology is strongly influenced by osmotic changes.

Today, Dunaliella studies are actively underway to determine the health benefits of the algae – including whether or not it can be sustainably extracted in a cost-effective way. Stay tuned to learn how Dunaliella may help you enjoy considerable health benefits in the future.

Dunaliella Salina Nutritional Supplements

Dunaliella salina nutritional supplements aren’t common today – but they can be found online and in certain health food stores.

Amazon, for example, sells this Algotene Dunaliella Salina Red Marine Phytoplankton supplement from ICL Health – the same company that created that farming operation in Western Australia that we talked about above.

This supplement promises to support healthy skin, eyes, and immune system functionality by working as a powerful source of antioxidants, carotenoids, and nutrients. Each capsule contains 500mg of pure, whole, dried Dunaliella salina.

You can also find Dunaliella supplements at Costco, including the Country Life Natural Beta Carotene supplement containing 25,000 IU of Vitamin A compounds.

Although Dunaliella supplements aren’t exceptionally popular today, you can expect them to be more popular in the future as the algae becomes better and better known for its considerable health benefits.